One of the most turbulent days in the financial calendar has arrived. Quadruple witching, a quarterly event where trillions of dollars in derivatives expire simultaneously, is happening today, and crypto markets are already feeling the pressure.
Four times a year, on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December, four major types of derivatives expire on the same day: stock index futures, stock index options, single stock options, and single stock futures. Traders must close, roll over, or settle all positions at once, causing a sharp surge in trading activity and often violent price swings across financial markets.
Today’s expiration is not just big. According to Goldman Sachs, it is the largest ever recorded.
More than $7.1 trillion in notional options exposure is set to expire today, including roughly $5 trillion tied to the S&P 500 index alone and $880 billion linked to single stocks. December options expirations are typically the biggest of the year, but Goldman says this one eclipses all prior records.
To put the scale into context, the options expiring today represent notional exposure equal to approximately 10.2% of the total market capitalisation of the Russell 3000. That is not a quarterly routine. That is a historic event.
Crypto does not operate in isolation from traditional finance anymore. Bitcoin increasingly moves alongside broader risk assets, meaning sharp equity swings have a habit of spilling directly into digital markets.
Historical data from 2025 paints a consistent picture. Bitcoin tended to show muted or flat performance on quadruple witching days themselves, followed by weakness in the days and weeks after. In September last year, a sharp post-witching decline took Bitcoin from $177,000 all the way down to $108,000. In June, it drifted to a local bottom just two days after the event.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is holding around $69,800, with Ethereum at $2,134, XRP at $1.43, and Solana at $88.93. The broader market Fear and Greed Index sits at just 30, firmly in fear territory.
Even after today passes, the market is not in the clear. A separate $13.5 billion in crypto derivatives are set to expire on Deribit on March 27, just one week away. Positioning data shows traders are leaning toward volatility strategies rather than strong directional bets, signalling the market is bracing for continued turbulence rather than a clean recovery.
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